Tom Moody: 12 interesting things to know about the tall Australian all-rounder

Born on October 2, 1965, Thomas Masson Moody, or simply Tom Moody, is a fine all-rounder to ever play for Australia. A tall man, Moody played as a top-order batsman in the initial days of his career, before moving down the order. His gentle medium pace swing bowling fetched him enough wickets too. On his birthday, Chinmay Jawalekar looks at 12 interesting things to know about the cricketer-turned-coach.

1. Tom Long Moody: Tom Moody was nicknamed Long for his height. He is 2 metres tall (six foot seven inch). By the time he ended his international career, his stature in the cricket fraternity was equally tall.

2. Child prodigy: Son of a headmaster, Moody studied at Guildford Grammar School in Perth. As a child, he was good at athletics, specially high jump, and Australian Rules football. However, it was cricket where he found his calling. At 13, he was selected to train with school s first XI and play with them the following year. He immediately progressed to Western Australian Grade Cricket after moving out of school.

3. First-Class debut: Moody made his debut for Western Australia during the 1985-86 season and made an immediate impact. In the five Sheffield Shield matches that he played, he scored 302 runs at 33.55, with best score of 94. His handy medium-pace bowling helped the team s cause too.

4. Debut at the biggest stage: Consistent performances and Australia s transitional phase meant Moody was picked up for the World Cup 1987 squad. However, in the three matches that he played, he did little and was promptly dropped.

5. Test debut: It took him a couple of years to get back to the national team. This time though, he was picked for the Test team and made his debut against New Zealand at Perth in November 1989. Playing at No. 3, he scored 61 and added 149 runs for the second wicket with David Boon.

6. Big-hitting exploits: Moody had to wait for three years after his debut to make a mark in One-Day International (ODI) cricket. Against Pakistan in February 1990, Moody smashed 82-ball 89 while opening the innings. His blazing innings was studded with four boundaries and equal number of sixes. His knock won the game for Australia and him the Man of the Match.

7. 36-ball 100: On July 27, 1990, playing for English county side Warwickshire, Moody smashed a 36-ball hundred against Glamorgan. The fact that the opposition bowled bad deliberately so as to allow his team score some quick runs before declaring doesn t take anything away from him. Such was the ferocity of his striking that he reached his fifty in just 11 minutes and to his hundred in 26 minutes.

8. ODI-specialist: Though Moody was a brilliant batsman more than 21,000 First-Class runs at an average 46.25 and 64 hundreds clearly justify the statement his Test career never really took off. He played only eight Tests for Australia, scoring 456 runs at 32.17. He was more successful in ODIs, where he scored 1,211 runs at 23.38 from 76 games. He also picked up 52 wickets in the process.

9. Two-time world champ: Moody played in three World Cups for Australia and ended-up winning two of them.

10. Records: During the 1999 World Cup, Moody scored a 28-ball fifty against Bangladesh, which was the then record of a fastest World Cup fifty. He also holds a rather insignificant record of throwing a haggis to a distance of 230 metres. His 1,387 List A runs for English county side Worcestershire in 1991 is still a record of most runs in a season for the county.

11. Domestic stalwart: Besides having a tremendous First-Class record, Moody also led his two domestic sides Western Australia and Worcestershire to all possible domestic titles.

12. Retirement and life beyond: Moody retired in 2001, after a back injury meant he could no longer continue as a player. But he continued to remain associated with the game in different capacities. He headed the Australian Cricketers Association, became the Director of cricket at Worcestershire, became a respected cricket commentator and coached a host of teams including the Sri Lankan national team and Western Australia. He is presently the coach of Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Sunrisers Hyderabad, and has been recently roped in PSL by new team Multan Sultans.

(A self-confessed cricket freak, Chinmay Jawalekar is senior content writer with Criclife. When not writing or following cricket, he loves to read, eat and sleep. He can be followed at @CricfreakTweets)